Orvar Klein is the son of an invalid Jewish shoemaker whose father died on the day he was born. A true man of the book, Orvar turns to literature for everything he needs to know, whether it’s how to swim or how to win a fistfight. This 20th-century classic of absurd and melancholy humor celebrates the love of books and the resilience of bookworms.
An old woman living in a remote part of Lapland tells the unvarnished story of her life as a nature writer, free spirit, and fervent fascist.
In this haunting novel by the celebrated author of The Rabbit Back Literature Society, a mild-mannered publisher reconnects online with his first love, reigniting long-forgotten memories of the dark, magical, and dangerous secret passages of his youth.
A densely imagined, funny, and moving tale of survival and spiritual insurrection in a land of stifling gender conformity, from the queen of Finnish Weird, Johanna Sinisalo.
A solitary groundskeeper on a country estate seeks clues to the fate of the mother he lost in childhood in this moody and atmospheric novel of criminal acts, family love, and loss from Finland’s most lyrical crime writer.
A gripping, suspenseful novel of love and lies in occupied Estonia, by internationally acclaimed author Sofi Oksanen.
Words Without Borders, the online journal of literature in English translation, has published an issue devoted to contemporary Finnish literature.
A man searches for the meaning of mass honeybee disappearances, and loss in his own life, in this moving story of tragedy and transcendence by Johanna Sinisalo.
A quiet young Finnish student is forced to share her train compartment with a drunken, tale-telling, self-proclaimed murderer as they cross the crumbling Soviet Union from Moscow to Ulan Bator in Rosa Liksom’s Finlandia Prize-winning novel.
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s brilliant, indescribable first novel is a darkly funny tale about a tiny town haunted by aspiring writers and otherwordly presences.